Planning and scheduling of mission-critical operations within constrained environments such as manned and unmanned space vehicles, military and/or scientific research bases, ships, oil rigs, and factory floors, has typically been performed solely by a small group of dedicated remote persons who are not performing the operation. Space flight, for example, has historically been managed from the ground. In the United States, the Mission Control team at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Tex. (“JSC”) has been in charge of creating and dictating the daily plans and activities for the crew. Mission Control has this responsibility because of their access to all of the pertinent information about the space flight. For example, Mission Control has insight into the vehicle's trajectory, the vehicle's attitude, what tasks need to be accomplished during that flight, what items in the vehicle are in need of repair that might hamper accomplishing a task, what items are in the vehicle's inventory, any medical considerations, and the like. As a result, the crew of a given space flight operate in a highly remote-controlled manner, with Mission Control knowing what needs to be done and telling the crew what to do and the order in which it is to be done to ensure safe vehicle operation.
The Mission Control team at JSC that is responsible for the International Space Station (“ISS”) consists of fifty people, who must orchestrate the tasks for the ISS. Currently, approval of any proposed changes to the task schedule requires the approval of international ISS partners, in addition to NASA's approval. This process can take several weeks and multiple mission management and international partner meetings. This is a very expensive and very cumbersome process. In addition, the process places a heavy burden on the flight controller to recall and effectively communicate his or her knowledge of the ISS's current status.